Should I Disclose Mental Health History at Work?
Artist: Unknown
Source: Like Minds, Like Mine
Article by Bernadette McSherry
This is a very interesting read. The Pros and Cons. Jx
Spiral
Artist: Robyn Hancock
Spiral
Revisiting
Revision
Repetition
Twisting
Turning
Navigating
Learning
Spiral
Which direction
Do you choose?
Win or lose?
Inward or outward?
You decide,
Which way to
Live your life.
Spiral
Forward
Onward
Growth
Change
Evolution
Creation
Resolution
Spiral
© Copyright 2016, Robyn Hancock. All Rights Reserved
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
I decided, given the new year that I would create new poems for this publication, thus giving me a creative challenge.
Casuality
There is a moment immediately after an action
When silence is deaf to itself:
There is only the smell of discharged weapons,
And smoke. Fractured air reverberating
From concussion; the hammering of fire.
Hands slowly disconnect their grasp
From stock and pistol grip.
Sometimes at the second of release
The shaking starts, butterfly wings
In the wind.
But within a minute, perhaps less, quiet rushes
Like a wave to engulf ears, cheeks, lips, the dirt
That is dressed with cartridge cases, belt-link and
– pray God not me – scarlet flowers that resolve
Into dressing pads.
Until like the release of a dam, from trickle to flood,
Come the screaming assault, a drenching in oily whimpering
Signaling men trapped in agony with no merciful release.
And so it goes even after the years have drawn tight
And the memories have been ingested.
One day a man meets a woman. They duel consensually
Drawing blood lightly with humour and intrigue.
But both are wary, carrying lessons from earlier actions
With dressing held ready to staunch the flow.
Copyright © 1994 – Jerry Beale
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
I wanted to describe how difficult it had been for me to allow anyone close to me after my experiences as a soldier. I felt dirty and damaged, and certain that anybody who looked into my soul would somehow be harmed.
Apopo
Artist: Robyn Hancock
Tomorrow
Future dawn.
Spirit reborn.
Apopo
Creating opportunities for change.
A chance to start again.
Tomorrow
Hope renewed.
Situations reviewed.
Apopo
Time to start a-fresh.
Adopting a different mindset.
Tomorrow
Eternal sunrise.
Celebrating life…
© Copyright 2016, Robyn Hancock. All Rights Reserved
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
I decided, given the new year, that I would create new poems for this publication, thus giving me a creative challenge.
Working through Cobwebs
Melbourne Street Art – Artist Unknown
Photographer: Jennifer Cox
Photo used with permission
“I’m trying to work through cobwebs”, he said,
with eyes pouring like rain
into a leaky boat
squaring off the shoreline,
heading out to sea
avoiding Redbacks
like the plague. negotiating
rogue waves
behind his back,
facing his fear; ex –
tended arms pull
away – escape
for the moment.
he scans the horizon
left to right that sinking
feeling farther, closer
than he expected de –
Nile; a river in Egypt
too far away to row
a thunder clap into eternity,
Isis turning a blind eye;
Trite – on dragging him
under, spinning
a vortex only Terra –
firma can translate.
taking the bull
by the horns, he finds
solid ground wrestling
Taurus, knee deep
in mud that sticks
like shit on the inside;
cobwebs cling to hard –
wired neurons
lodged in the gaps
in – between grey,
a matter for
black and white.
separate, facts find
fiction fornicating
in a web of deceit
by design, too lurid
for children like
Persephone – abducted
innocence; a metaphor
for rape, choking the Hell
out of life. all the while,
pseudo affection bribes
a hand – full of lollies,
to sweeten the blow.
“I want everything to be saved”,
he said.
© Copyright 2016, Jodine Derena Butler. All Rights Reserved
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
It’s very sad watching loved ones hurting.
Long Lines of Lies
Photographer: Unknown
I don’t know what to do
when they look into my eyes
expecting
the drawing they made of me
they rewrite me,
insert the cliche that hangs like a slave in the square
I feel their lies
tickle,
nuanced and lovely to the touch,
and me gracefully bludgeoned
eventually they find the door
and drag away their sharpened tongues
and behind
a mind reawakened –
coloured by Matisse
with words sprinkled in the lush greens of grass
Copyright © 2016 (Keith Nunes)
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
This poem makes sense of what I feel going on around me or at least what I perceive is going on.
Bird
Artist: Hua Tunan
Image used with permission
Morning time. So I leave my door, descending the four steps
Precariously
My feet are bare upon the grass. Its wetness is almost sexual
If not for the cold.
A spider’s web catches the silver promise of light within a single drop
Of moiisture. Such a perfect fragile jewel;
It’s the sound I catch first. An impatient fluttering, daubed with
High-pitched peeps of distress.
Step over the log, my feet finding primordial satisfaction in its
Careless roughness.
The chicken wire lies in a tired bundle, threaded through with grass
And a single impatient thistle.
There. In the middle of the roll. A tiny brown speckled form. A thrush
Trapped within the deaf wire.
Exhausted.
My feet stop. With each step closer, the bird becomes more animated
Beating its tiny form against the wire.
How can I say ‘I mean to help you, to tear back the walls that encircle you,
To give you back your universe? For we are so deeply
Alien to each other.
I am torn. I cannot leave this other life. Yet I cannot help. Energy drains
From me. I am now unnecessary.
A watcher only.
The bird is still. Its chest heaves once. A wing slips and hangs loose,
Askew.
It’s quiet.
I begin to hate the wire.
Copyright © 2002 – Jerry Beale
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
This poem describes an actual event which had a profound effect on me. It emphasised how separate we have become from the simplicity of nature.
Forgotten Skin
Artist: Nod Ghosh
Image used with permission
He carries acres of skin,
a decadent petticoat, wrapped
around his identity.
He finds a portion
untouched since
the beginning of memories.
A foreign pellicle,
symbiotic lesion,
that forges a crossing through
Lethean shorelines.
He travels to unknown
territory, unravels keratin spirals
bounded by
an integumental sea.
He feels its smoothness,
unremarkable
in doughy caress.
He enters the fourth room
of a three roomed house,
licks himself clean,
like an atheist in heaven.
Copyright © 2015 (Nod Ghosh)
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
When the meat and veg of life are difficult to chew, Nod Ghosh finds sanctuary in a gravy of words. Forgotten Skin examines the urge to self-mutilate, while Sailfins relates to when a person chooses death over life.
Sailfins
Artist: Nod Ghosh
Image used with permission
She wades
through salt soaked shallows,
searches for pipi,
hopes for kina, with
a bucket on her arm.
She cries an echo
from sand bars clean,
untroubled
by the task of harvesting
abundant molluscs.
Elusive echinoderms
charm live victims
to shallow depths,
against the cry of bitterns.
She treads with finite steps,
where sailfins fly
and mermaids die.
She wades between
riptides of fate,
hopes Tangaroa
will find her body.
Copyright © 2015, Nod Ghosh
CONTRIBUTORS NOTE:
When the meat and veg of life are difficult to chew, Nod Ghosh finds sanctuary in a gravy of words. Forgotten Skin examines the urge to self-mutilate, while Sailfins relates to when a person chooses death over life.
Head Lines NZ 
